After several days, if no blistering or peeling was present, the defendant was presumed innocent. Since it was not always boiling water that was used, this was one of the most easily-manipulated trials for the ordealists to work over. The priest would go before the altar and pray aloud that God would choke him if he were not telling the truth. He would then take The Host the holy eucharist , and if he was guilty of perjury or the crime, he would either choke or have difficulty swallowing.
A common use was in trials where someone was accused of witchcraft. The defendant would ingest the calabar beans. If they vomited up the beans, they were presumed innocent, and if they digested the beans they were presumed guilty. Most defendants who digested the beans were killed by their effects. The physostigmine effects of the calabar beans are similar to the effects of nerve gasses that have been used in war; they disrupt the communication between muscles and the nervous system, and the victim dies of asphyxiation when the diaphragm fails to respond.
The nut of the tagena tree Cerbera odollam contains cerberin, which is related to the toxin found in foxglove digoxin. This causes the heart to fibrillate an uncoordinated spasmodic contraction that fails to pump blood , and in many cases, completely stop beating. Its use was banned in by King Radama II, but is still known to be used in homicide and suicide in Madagascar and India, and in trial by ordeal that continues in remote Madagascar provinces.
This tree produces a toxin similar to the tagena of Madagascar throughout its tissues, but also produces a hemolytic blood-thinner , and a convulsant toxin. In the most common ritual, the defendant is called to ingest a concoction of the sassywood bark. If they vomit it back up, they are presumed innocent.
The hot water ordeal required the accused to plunge his bare arm up to the elbow into boiling water without injury. In the ordeal of the cursed morsel , the suspect swallowed a piece of dry bread with a feather in it. If the suspect did not choke, he was found innocent. The ordeal of the red-hot iron required the accused to carry a heated poker weighing one, two, or three pounds over a certain distance.
After that, the suspect's hand was bound, and in three days the bandages were removed. If the wound had not become infected, the suspect was pronounced innocent. A variation of this ordeal required the accused person to walk barefoot and blindfolded over nine red-hot plowshares placed at uneven distances. The ordeals of the red-hot iron and the plowshares were also called the fire ordeals and were often reserved for nobility. But if they floated the water was rejecting them, rendering them guilty.
The key to the ordeal was the interpretation of the result. The community would probably have had a good idea if someone had committed the crime or not so would interpret accordingly, says Dr Eves. Another option was trial by combat or wager of battle - a fight between the accused and their accuser, which was introduced by the Normans in and depicted in HBO series Game of Thrones. God would grant the moral-victor the strength to vanquish the person who wronged them.
But there is an obvious flaw - some people are simply better at fighting than others. So a party could plump for a champion to fight on their behalf. But again this would favour richer folk who could afford to pay for a better fighter. Trial by combat remained in English law until , although its use had dwindled over the centuries.
In , a man demanded trial by combat to resolve a motoring fine , but magistrates rejected his appeal and fined him. Statistically, ordeals cleared more people than they condemned. They were not something to be taken lightly, a guilty person would have believed God would find them so.
So surely only a genuinely innocent person, who knows God knows their innocence, would go to an ordeal? It was the Church's decision to withdraw support for ordeals that ultimately doomed the practice. In a papal council decree was issued - priests should no longer be involved. The Church felt it was improper to ask God to intervene, it was akin to demanding a miracle.
As the priest was the one who oversaw the ordeal, blessed the water and iron and ensured the validity of the result, this effectively rendered ordeals impossible.
An increased understanding of science and rise in rational thought also saw the perceived infallibility of the ordeal diminish. So for four years there was no prescribed way of determining guilt.
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